“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1

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"Every rape is a
grave violation of physical and mental integrity. Every rape has the potential
to profoundly debilitate, to render the woman homeless in her own body and
destroy her sense of security in the world.

Every
rape is an expression of male domination and misogyny, a vehicle of terrorizing
and subordinating women. Like torture, rape takes many forms, occurs in many
contexts, and has different repercussions for different victims.

Every
rape is multidimensional, but not incomparable. "

Rhonda Copelon, “Surfacing
Gender: Reconceptualizing Crimes Against Women in Time of War”

Disabled:

A person with a disability is 4 to
10 times more likely to be a victim of a crime than a person without a
disability. 60% of women with hearing impairments, 59% of women with
visual impairments, 57% of women with learning disabilities, and 47% of women
with mobility impairments will be physically abused in their
lifetimes. 81% of people with psychiatric disabilities have been
physically or sexually assaulted. 85% of women with disabilities have been
victims of some form of domestic abuse. Women with disabilities stay in
relationships with their batters almost twice as long as women without
disabilities.

Nora J. Baladerian, Table of
Contents, from Interviewing Skills to Use with Abuse Victims Who Have Developmental
Disabilities, at v (Spectrum Institute 1998). [Click Here]

Beating the Odds: Violence and Women
with Disabilities by Jacqueline Pelletier, Report: Women with Disabilities
Network meeting, June 20-23, 1985. The issue is violence against
women with disabilities was everywhere. In the rural areas and in the cities,
in the operation rooms and on the psychiatric wards, at home, on the streets -
Women are at risk - and Women with disabilities are at greater risk

Domestic Violence by Police Officers

Victims of domestic violence by Police Officers face unique
problems and have great difficulty getting appropriate help and assistance.

Crystal Brame was killed by her estranged husband, the
police chief of Tacoma, Washington. Here are some facts on cops as batterers.

Domestic
violence is 2 to 4 times more common in police families than in the
general population. In two separate studies, 40% of police officers
self-report that they have used violence against their domestic partners
within the last year. In the general population, it's estimated that
domestic violence occurs in about 10% of families.

In a
nationwide survey of 123 police departments, 45% had no specific policy
for dealing with officer-involved domestic violence.

In that
same survey, the most common discipline imposed for a sustained allegation
of domestic violence was counseling. Only 19% of departments indicated
that officers would be terminated after a second sustained allegation of
domestic violence.

In San
Diego, a national model in domestic violence prosecution, the City
Attorney typically prosecutes 92% of referred domestic violence cases, but
only 42% of cases where the batterer is a cop.

Elderly:

Elder Mistreatment: Abuse, Neglect,
and Exploitation in an Aging America (2003) Richard J. Bonnie and Robert
B. Wallace, Eds., Panel to Review Risk and Prevalence of Elder Abuse and
Neglect, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences. [Click Here]

Violence in Families: Assessing
Prevention and Treatment Programs (1998) Rosemary Chalk and Patricia A. King,
Eds., National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. [Click Here]

Sexual Assault on Native American Women

An Amnesty International Report
found that Native women were 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually
assaulted than females in the U.S.A. in general, and are often assaulted
by non-native men. In Alaska, "there may not be a law enforcement
official to report a crime to, and women from isolated villages may not have
the means to travel to a town," the report noted. A third of native
villages that are inaccessible by road have no police presence. Adequate
funding is crucial to address the pressing problems of Native American Women
who become victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other
crimes. Too often the lack of attention to the needs of Native Americans
means too little funding to confront the problems of vulnerable women, victims
of crime, and women struggling with mental health issues like PTSD (rape trauma
syndrome). Cultural Differences between Native American Women and the
general US population and lack of law enforcement training for officers in
communication with Native American Women who have been victims of sexual
assault means that these crimes go often unreported and
uninvestigated. Native American Communities struggle to meet the
most basic needs of their population and therefore do not have the resources to
mount a campaign to address these specific issues. This is a
silent problem within the Native American population some have even
referred to it as a silent epidemic.

Indigenous Women:

Mairin Iwanka Raya: Indigenous Women Stand against Violence.
This report puts forward an Indigenous conceptualization of gender-based
violence. It reflects the fruitful result of efforts by Indigenous women around
the world, highlights promising practices in research, political mobilization,
and community organizing, and describes future challenges to guarantee that
Indigenous women have the right to a life free from violence. [Click here]

Gay/Lesbian

Same sex domestic violence SSDV is very much a hidden issue
within the mainstream community and the gay and lesbian community.
There is a poor community understanding of DV, lack of services especially
those with gay and lesbian cultural experience and membership of a small and
often marginalized community. The threat of or actually outing a partner’s
sexuality can be a very effective form of control because it comes with a raft
of fears about rejection and isolation. This is especially true of people
in their first same sex relationship. Someone can be outed to their family,
friends, work or community. A further heterosexist control is to use other
people’s homophobia as a form of control. So an abusive partner may
convince their partner that others won’t accept their sexuality or the
relationship and can use the associated fear to limit their social
interactions, their family contact or even their career. There is a community
wide myth that women aren’t perpetrators of abuse or violence and that men
aren’t victims of it. This perception is also held by many in the gay and
lesbian community. So when DV happens it is dismissed as something else –
either a fight, an argument or just going through a bad period. Actually
Domestic Violence in same sex relationships is very similar to DV in different
sex relationships.

Military Victims:

The United States military is set
apart from civilian culture by its own law, social customs, and practices.
This affects the military’s response to sexual assault and often makes it
difficult or even impossible for victims to obtain the help they need and the
investigation they deserve. Sexual assault in the military is often called
"command rape."

Secondary Victims

Seconadary or Vicarious traumatization is used
to describe the effects of sexual assault experienced by non-perpetrator family
members of victim/survivors. Trauma research has recognized that witnessing
violence or abuse against a “significant other”, or being exposed to traumatic
material in other ways, is traumatic within itself, creating “secondary
victims” of sexual assault and other traumas. In cases of sexual assault,
this secondary victimization occurs to the partners, family, friends,
co-workers, even responding medical professionals, police officers
and rape trauma counselors. This “secondary traumatization” and “vicarious
traumatization” causes ripple effects that are under-recognized, but the
effects are potentially endless because sexual assault affects all aspects of
the victim’s life.

Jewish American Women

A Bibliography of Sexual and Domestic Violence in the Jewish
Community [Click Here]

Sex, Rape and Survival: Jewish Women and the Holocast, Myrna
Goldenberg Ph.D. and Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of
Holocaust Studies, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey [Click Here]

Muslim Women:

The Muslim Wheel of Domestic Violence was developed by Dr.
Sharifa Alkhateeb. It conveys some of the ways religion can be distorted to
justify abuse against women and children in the family context. It is an
adaptation of the Power and Control Wheel developed by the Domestic Abuse
Project of Duluth, Minnesota. [Click here]

State Failure to stop Domestic Abuse
and Abduction in Kyrgyzstan [Click Here]

Mukhtaran Bibi(مختاران بی‌بی) also known as
Mukhtar Mai, Mukhtiar or Mukhtaran is a Pakistani woman from a rural village in
Pakistan. Mukhtar Mai suffered a gang rape as a form of honor-revenge (see honour killing), on the demands of
tribesmen — or by some accounts, on the orders of a panchayat (tribal council). By
custom, Pakistani women are expected to commit suicide after such an event.
Instead, she took the settlement money provided her by the government following
a court case, and opened a center for refuge and education, the Mukhtar Mai
Women's Welfare Organization. In April 2007, Mukhtar Mai won the North-Sourth
Prize from the EU Council of Europe. In 2005, Glamour Magazine named her
"Glamour Woman of the Year. After
the conviction of her attackers, Mukhtaran became a symbol for advocates for
the health and security of women in her region, attracting both national and
international attention to these issues. Mukhtar Mai became famous after she
took the money awarded her in the court settlement, and began to work to
educate girls, and to promote education with a view towards raising awareness
to prevent future honor crimes.

"Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself." Confucius

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who
at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore
Roosevelt- Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic",
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

Medical Whistleblower Commitment to Non-Violence

Medical Whistleblower has a commitment to improving the protection of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as defined in, among others, the following regional and international legal instruments:

• UN legal instruments pertaining to human rights, including: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the international covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights; the conventions providing for monitoring mechanisms (torture, racial discrimination, discrimination against women, the rights of the child, rights of migrant workers and their families); and the conventions and standards of the International Labor Organization;

• Special procedures and non-treaty mechanisms of the United Nations;

• The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders;

• The UN resolution establishing the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights defenders;

• The United Nations guidelines on human rights defenders;

In addition, Medical Whistleblower upholds the principle of a code of ethical and moral conduct that all means used by Medical Whistleblower will not include violence - We exclude the use of violence to advance political aims. We work with and in collaboration with existing governmental structures and systems but put pressure on governments in a non-violent manner to achieve human rights protections and goals.

"The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience."

“When we call anything a person’s right, we mean that he has a
valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the
force of law, or by that of education and opinion”

John Stuart Mill

"The adversarial system of justice is by nature unfair and unjust. It favours the strongover the weak. It accentuates social and cultural differences, favouring the rich whoare able to engage and pay for the services of one or more layers."

Justice MinisterMadame Guigou, 1999

“Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.”
―Martin Luther

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“The most powerful individual in the state will be cautious of committing any flagrant invasion of another’s right, when he knows that the fact of his oppression must be examined and decided by twelve indifferent men.”

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“I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something
that I can do.”
― Edward Everett Hale

Film on Residential Child Abuse

Over the GW - Available on DVD

Make Torture of US Citizens on US Soil illegal

IF YOU NEED HELP

Vietnam
Veterans of America, Crisis Phone Number. Special
Notice: If you are a veteran in emotional crisis and need help RIGHT NOW, call
this toll-free number 1-800-273-8255 available 24/7, and tell them you are a
veteran. All calls are confidential. http://www.vva.org/.

Veterans’
Crisis Intervention Hotline: 1-888-899-9377.
A Crisis Intervention Hotline has been established by the VA Heartland Network
to assist veterans who may be dealing with a mental health crisis or difficult
issue in their lives. The hotline will also aid family members or friends of
veterans who need help in assisting a veteran in crisis.

Safe Harborincludes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs.